Witnesses Describe Mistreatment of Civilians by “Mice” Paramilitaries

The state prosecution has charged Dragan Marjanovic, Sasa Gavranovic, Vitomir Devic, Zoran Sljuk, Dragomir Kezunovic and Dario Slavuljica with participating in an attack against the Bosniak and Croat population and detaining them at the Teslic police station, on Territorial Defense premises and in a military prison from June 1992 to June 30, 1993.
 
The defendants have been accused of taking 28 detained civilians from a Teslic police station and the nearby Pribinic prison to Mount Borje on the night of June 17 and 18, 1992. There, the defendants allegedly killed them.

Damir Glancer, a former crime technician with the local police station, testified at today’s hearing. He said when the Mice paramilitary formation came to Teslic he and a few of his colleagues had to sign statements to continue working at the station, because they weren’t Serbs.

“I had to leave my workplace as per an order by the Mice [paramilitary formation]. I remember conducting a crime scene inspection with my colleague Goran that morning…Upon my return, two armed men met me at the police station’s parking lot. They confiscated my documents and personal arms,” Glancer said. He said he saw members of the Mice paramilitary formation yelling at other employees at the station.

He said one of the Mice paramilitaries handcuffed him and slapped him.

“Those handcuffs hurt more than the slap. No members of my family have ever been handcuffed,” Glancer said.

Glancer said he was taken to a detention unit where he was detained for a few hours before being sent home until further notice. He said the head of the public safety station in Teslic intervened on his behalf.  

Glancer said his father Viktor, his aunt’s husband Borislav Pastuhovic and a family friend were arrested when the Mice paramilitaries came to the area.

“Members of the Mice [paramilitary formation] were arrested, when guys from Banja Luka led by Predrag Radulovic arrived. I was allowed to go back to work. I asked Radulovic what had happened to my father. He said he had been detained in the public safety station, because a captain’s notes indicated he had met up with Borislav and a friend of his. I said this was normal, because they’d socialized with each other their whole lives,” Glancer said.

Glancer said Radulovic told him his father and others had been taken away towards Pribinic, after members of the Mice paramilitary formation had become upset due to the wounding of one of their fighters during an attack on Rankovici.

Glancer said the remains of his father and uncle were found on Mount Borje.

Responding to questions from the defense, he said the Mice paramilitary formation and a group of men from Teslic, whose names he didn’t know, killed his father and others on Mount Borje.

Witness Tihomir Pastuhovic said a police officer named Aleksa and a soldier named Drago Lekic took his father Borislav away on June 7, 1992.

“Later on I found out they were mistreated and tortured at the police station. He was found at Bebe on Mount Borje,” Pastuhovic said.

He said a reign of terror began in the area with the arrival of the Mice paramilitaries in Teslic.

The trial will continue on October 15.